


stories

by zeitgeistofnow



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Fluff, Gen, mick is worried about juno, okay so i did this for a secret santa exchange but misunderstood the prompt, sasha has Buisness, so yall get this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-07 18:49:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12847302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeitgeistofnow/pseuds/zeitgeistofnow
Summary: juno felt bad, and so he was nursing his bad mood with a short glass of sparkling water and a tabloid he found in rita’s desk.rita, one the other hand, felt... fine.





	stories

Juno felt bad, which sucked because he had been feeling good the past few days. He had been feeling the kind of good made him want to do things like go to the park and talk to kids and show them how to tell a rabbit footprint from a deer, and now he didn’t feel like doing anything but sitting on his couch staring at the glass of fizzy water he had poured himself after finally deciding to listen to Rita and not drink at 11 in the morning.

This bad mood had come accompanied by the reminder that the parks in Hyperion were terrible, that there weren’t any deer anymore after the hunting trend in the early 2560’s, and that no little kid was going to talk to a stranger with a weird eye and a trench coat.

 

Rita felt fine- great, one could argue, if one decided to weigh how she felt against how others (Mistah Steel in particular) often felt, instead of how she often did- which was fine, because she had the day off because Mistah Steel had been feeling good the past few days and had let her have a day off to watch a Northstar movie marathon while he went and did whatever he did when she wasn’t there. Probably watched a lot of cop shows and took lessons on how to make one-liners sound good.

Cinderella was just reporting her stepmother for abuse when Mistah Steel called in.

Rita pressed ‘accept call’ on her comms and held it up to her ear, expecting Mistah Steel to tell her that he found a case and needed her to help him find a mention the Mooblygoo of Mongontonfon in Pereyra’s email.

Instead, there was radio silence.

“...Mistah Steel?”

She could hear the soft fizz of a carbonated drink in the background- or maybe that was static from the TV. Mistah Steel had never quite figured out how to use it to actually watch shows without her help, but he sometimes just turned it on for the background noise.

“Boss? You there?”

There was a long, heavy sigh from the other end of the call.

“You’re sad again, aren’t you?” Rita deduced.

“How’d you guess?”

“I got spidey-senses, boss, from hanging around you so much.”

“Are you doing anything, Rita?”

Rita glanced mournfully at the stack of old cartoons she had on her coffee table, but said, “Nothin’ I can’t do later.”

“Would you…” Mistah Steel trailed off. He obviously had gone so long without doing anything enjoyable that he had forgotten what things were enjoyable.

“Do somethin’ with you? Of course, boss. What’re partners for?”

“We’re not partners. You work for me,” he grumbled.”

“Now, you could come over and watch the marathon with me-”

Mistah Steel made a noise like a mortally wounded seal and Rita decided that was a bad idea.

“-or we could go get manicures, because, Mistah Steel, your fingernails are atrocious.”

“No one’s going to take a PI with fingernail polish seriously.”

“Agent Glass painted his nails, and so does the mayor.”

“The mayor’s evil, Rita.”

“That’s no excuse, Mistah Steel.” She crossed one arm over her chest, using the other to hold up the comms. “You’re the one who called me, and we’re going out.”

Frannie had gotten Rita coupons to the manicure place down the road for Rita’s birthday last week, but Rita hadn’t used them, because the salon was frequented by the mafia and by various bounty hunters- some of which were nice and baked cookies for her and talked about the latest episode of Herlock Sholmes, but most of whom kicked puppies as a hobby- and she wouldn’t feel safe without Mistah Steel or someone like him with her.

She paused the movie and started rifling through her desk for the coupons. They were pink… or was it red? Maybe it was gray. No. Pink with aquamarine decals and that cute little iguana in the corner.

Yeah, there were pink and they were right there in the corner of the second drawer. Perfect.

There was a knock on the door and she spun toward it. “Mistah Steel just come right in, I got our coupons, I just gotta grab my coat and we’ll be on our way-”

The door cracked open and a voice that was most certainly not Mistah Steel’s came from it. “Miss Rita, please come with me.”

Rita hadn’t been kidnapped before, but she’d seen a ton of cop shows, and she thinks Mistah Steel was kidnapped before, on one of his cases, but that wasn’t her business and she had freed him without asking questions. If she was being honest, she was a bit excited, because wouldn’t Mistah Steel be proud! He was always being cool stuff like escaping from captors and pretending to be evil to get into the bad guys lair and now she was doing that! And so she was just slightly disappointed the person from behind the door stepped in and said, “This is not a kidnapping, we just want to talk.”

Rita’s stomach sunk, because  _ this  _ wasn’t anything new, but the person was wearing a mask, which was promising.

“Sure, Mx…” She glanced at the person, who shook their head. “Well sure, Mx. Mystery, but do I gotta go somewhere? Because me an’ Mistah Steel were planning on goin’ out to get our nails done.”

The person grimaced. “I’m afraid your plans may have to be postponed.”

 

When Juno gets to Rita’s flat- begrudgingly, because  _ no one  _ will take a PI seriously if their nails are bright red, because that plants doubts in the client's mind- what if this is what Juno’s doing on the job? But he can’t just leave Rita on the hook like that because she worries. He thinks she worries, anyway. He flatters himself, thinks she worries, just so he can believe that someone does, because if anyone worries about Juno, it’s Rita, and so if she doesn’t care, then who does? But when Juno get’s to Rita’s flat, the door cracked open and the TV is off, which is strange for Rita. 

Juno dusts his feet off on the mat and walks in. “Rita, i’m here!”

There’s silence. He creeps around the corner. No Rita. As he carefully searches the rest of the apartment, it becomes increasingly clear that Rita is not home. But she was home when he commsed her, he could hear her TV in the background. His search becomes more like how he would search a missing person’s apartment as this dawns on him. No sign of a struggle, nothing that would indicate that she was kidnapped, or murdered, or anything in that group of crimes. She’s not the type to leave her house on a whim, especially if someone was going to join her, unless someone came to get her- Juno goes back to the door and looks dismally at the door knob, covered in his fingerprints. He’s not finding anything from that. And the people Rita hangs around are crafty. If this is anything important, they’re not going to risk leaving fingerprints. Gloves, or they’d simply knock. 

Juno’s almost ready to start researching what she’s been doing before he remembers that this isn’t a case and he goes and sits down on her couch and looks at the movies on the table. 

He feels almost nauseous, like if he ate the wrong thing he’d probably vomit. But he looks back at the stack of movies, and maybe he can put all the bad memories aside long enough to distract himself with a Northlands movie. 

Mulan, maybe. It was Sarah’s- it’s a good movie. Juno should probably confront some of that shit anyway, and a kids’ movie is as good a way as any to start. He goes to Rita’s kitchen and pours himself a glass of wine- fuck anyone telling him when to drink, actually. He’s survived this long- before settling into her couch and pressing play. 

 

When Rita get’s to Mistah Steel’s place, she’s confused. No one’s who’s taken her to talk has ever gone to her Boss’s, due to him often being there.

“Mx. Mystery?” She asks, fingering one of the buttons on her coat, “Why’re we at Mistah Steel’s house? That seems kinda odd.”

“This is the one place we can quite sure he won’t be right now.”

Rita can almost see the logic- who looks at their own house for a kidnapper?- but it seems like something out of one of those cop shows where nothing’s quite believable enough.

The person opens the door and gestures for Rita to come in. She does and plops down on the couch, rubbing her feet. Her heels were a bit to high, and her shoes a bit too small for the speed of their walking. There’s one other person in the kitchen, rummaging through Mistah Steel’s fridge, mumbling about how “jay should really feed himself better, half this stuff is inedible, and the other half is expired and the remaining half is whiskey.”

The person that came to Rita’s door takes off her mask and drops it on the floor. It’s Agent Wire, and Rita feels like she should have known who it was. Rita prides herself on remembering faces and the rest of people, and she’s seen the agent enough times that she should have recognised her. 

“That’s a very nice dress, Miss Rita.” Agent Wire says. Rita preens.

“Thank you! I was just going to get my nails painted so they’d match,” she says pointedly. 

Sasha Wire sighs. “I’m sorry, but we needed to talk.” she looks at the fridge. “Mick, get your head out of there.”

Mick grabs a tub of ice cream and comes over to sit by them. “Yeah, Rita, we’re here for Dark Matters.” Mick puffs up his chest and Sasha sighs. 

“I’m here for Dark Matters. Mick’s here for Juno.”

“Mistah Steel’s been fine. Pretty good, if we’re being honest. He gave me a day off work. Although…” Rita trails off and Mick looks at her curiously. “I mean, he didn’t sound so good when he commsed me. We were gonna go out for manicures.”

Mick spoons himself a bite of the ice cream. 

Sasha rests her hands on the table. “As much as I’d love to know how Juno is, we’re here for a real reason.”

“Business,” Rita repeats, and groans internally. She’s gotta life outside of her employment with Mistah Steel, and she knows should be happy that she’s not kidnapped more often, like that one friend she had that worked for the city and was kidnapped every other day before she quit, but she still hates her marathons being interrupted by business.

“Yeah, business,” Mick chimes. “Sasha here wants to hear a bit about those bounty hunters you hang around.” He’s trying to sound intimidating, but he’s eating ice cream and there’s a smudge on his upper lip. Bounty hunters? At least it wasn’t Mistah Steel...

“Oh y’mean Venus and Gracie?” Rita crosses her legs. “They’re both darlings-”

“No, I mean Josh.” Sasha says.

“John… What’s’is last name?”

Sasha checks her comms. “Frankenstein. Our records say he lives in the apartment across from you.”

“Oh  _ him _ . I don’t know him that well. Mistah Steel says he’s a bad egg.”

Mick, around a bite of ice cream, says, “Yeah, he killed someone yesterday.”

Sasha glares at him. “That classified information, Mick.”

“Mistah Steel was right, then. But ya don’t need me, Agent Wire.” 

“But you can hack his computer,” Mick says. Rita is beginning to think that the only reason Mick is here is to say the things Agent Wire is too polite to.

“Dark Matter’s got agents to do  _ that.”  _ Rita points out. Mick nods in agreement. 

“We need your…” Sasha pauses tastefully, like in the climax of a dramatic movie, “storytelling skills.”

Rita had her mouth open, ready to say no, but she didn’t expect Sasha’s answer. “Wha?”

“My superiors have been complaining about how boring my reports are.” Sasha says, spreading her hands. “I came all the way to Hyperion for you, Rita. Juno says you’re quite the storyteller.”

Rita bats her eyelashes. All the way to Hyperion… for Rita! “Well gee, Agent Wire. You got quite the proposition. Am I gettin’ paid for this…” she rubs her hands together. “... storytellin’?”

“You’re getting paid in deserts. We have an associate in the bakery field, and they offered to pay you.”

This is Rita’s dream job, but she has to play hard to get. “Mmm. Throw in a break every two hours, and you’ve got yourself a deal.”

Sasha looks relieved. “Of course.”

Rita stands up. “So when can I start?”

The agent takes a computer from her bag. “As soon as possible. Here. Work wherever you like, and email me the result. I need to be going.” She takes a hat from the coatrack, leaves her mask on the floor, and walks out the door. Mick takes a last bite of ice cream and walks out after her. 

 

Juno watches half the movies in the stack and manages to confine himself to one bottle of Rita’s wine. They’re all classics, like Cinderella and Andromeda and The Emperor’s New Groove. 

After watching the fifth girl fall in love and have a happy monogamous relationship with her wife with no arguments or strife, though, Juno’s beginning to get restless. He doesn’t know why he thought Northstar movies were a good idea. They bring back memories, of Benton-and-Juno and of ‘ _ call me a fool, but I think I’ve fallen in love with you _ ’. Juno rifles through the stack of movies again, looking for his favorite, or for anything that Sarah didn’t work on. He finds a newer movie- made in the past twenty years- and puts it in the TV, taking a sip from his glass. 

 

Rita reads through the overview Sasha sent her- all the evidence right there, what happened, how it happened,  _ why  _ it happened. Rita’s impressed with the ‘why’, Mistah Steel can never figure out why in his cases and she knows that’s part of why he’s so sad.

The overview, though, is about as interesting as paint drying, and none of it is in order. It’s just half-typed notes and figures, and Josh Frankenstein’s health records. 

It doesn’t take long for Rita to finish reading through it. She was the fastest reader in her class when she was younger, never mind she never really read an actual book until a few months ago, when Agent Glass had left her with one about a romance during a heist, and then a few weeks later when Frannie gave her a book for her book group.

The facts are interesting. Josh was part of a gang- the records say that wasn’t why he killed the man, though. It was a theater group that called themselves a gang so people see their shows. Rita pauses, mourning for the arts. The things people have to do to get noticed these days… 

There are several pages about the group’s past performances. Rita rifles through them. They look pretty good and she vows to look into them more. 

Some about the relationship he had with a person a different planet who then went back to that planet- xey broke his heart, according to the scan of his diary. Four pages about his mental health history and his person relationship with guns, and then, the last page, a sentence. ‘He killed someone because he’s a bounty hunter.’

Rita thinks that’s a good resolution and begins piecing together to facts into a story. 

A few hours later, she stands up and stretches, pressing a few buttons to send her story to Agent Wire, along with the accompanying powerpoint essay on his past datemate and why they should be sent a bouquet of roses, in case anyone has some extra flowers. She shrugs on her coat and takes the subway back to her apartment, hoping Mistah Steel hasn’t left yet.

 

Juno’s just staring blandly at the end credits of his most recent movie when Rita walks in and hangs up her coat. 

“Hey, Mistah Steel. Howa’s your day?”

He doesn’t respond, just looks up at her. He’s not in the mood to respond, he’s hungover on happy endings and bad memories. 

“Well regardless of how your day’s been, mine’s been  _ fine _ . I got some work done, and I mean i never finished my marathon, but that can be saved for another day.”

She pauses and takes in the scene. Juno suddenly remembers that he’s been in her place the entire day, and he worries for a second, but she doesn’t seem to care. “Well, are you coming or not?”

“What?” Juno asks, blinking slowly. 

“We’re getting our nails done? Maybe we’ll catch J.C. there. They’re such a doll.”

Juno slowly remembers their plans. “Oh.. who’s J.C?”

“One’a my friends, Mistah Steel. I  _ do  _ have a life outside of the office, you know.”

 

An hour and a half later, Juno has alternating red and black fingernails- a compromise with Rita- and he’s feeling…fine. 


End file.
